Category Archives: Love and Marriage

Left unsupervised, I’m a zealous joiner. Every project, every committee, every study group, and every volunteer role sounds like the perfect opportunity for me to get involved and make a contribution. When I hear about a new possibility or project, my immediate reaction is to raise my hand or make a beeline for the sign-up link.

I remember the first year both of my girls were in school all day. After seven years in the trenches with babies, toddlers, and then preschoolers, what in the world was I going to do with all of this extra time? The possibilities seemed endless! What I did was sign up for far too many things; room mom for both of the girls’ classes, new responsibilities at church, and the beginnings of several projects at home. It quickly became apparent that I had overcommitted. I had overreached my personal capacity for juggling, and the balls were hitting the floor all around me.

Truth be told, I have a limited attention span. I also have limited resources in terms of time and energy. Much to my frustration, I can only be in one place at a time. I require regular food, exercise, and sleep in order to keep my motor running, and possibly even more importantly, to be nice to the people with whom I live. As much as I would like to have superhero multi-tasking abilities, I am only human.

Many of us find ourselves buying into some kind of Wonder Woman complex. Too many of us are frazzled and stressed out by the abundance of responsibilities we are attempting to manage well, while simultaneously feeling like failures because we can’t seem to keep up with how fast our world is moving.

Thanks to the hard work of the generations of women who have come before us, women today can choose to have a family and also to pursue our passions outside the home…

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On our next anniversary, my husband and I will celebrate thirty years of marriage. As I look back on our lifetime of love, I am astonished to find so many years have passed since two young kids went on their first date. We were only sixteen years old and juniors in high school—who would have thought we would still be traveling together at fifty-one? Yet isn’t that how life works? One decision leads to another, there’s a fork in the path, and a trajectory is set. When I think back on those two kids, my heart is tender, knowing what I know now about the ways we complement each other, the ways we’ve formed each other, the decisions we’ve made to make our marriage work, no matter the cost.

It wasn’t always easy. In fact, there were points when I wasn’t sure it would work. Because of issues in my family of origin, I went into marriage with a chip on my shoulder and an escape plan firmly in place. In theory, two extremely bossy and controlling people should not be able to make a marriage work. But I learned that I couldn’t stomp my feet and scream when I was angry, and he learned that he couldn’t shut down and hope I would go away. We learned to choose our battles, love each other sacrificially, and make our marriage the top priority. We also laughed a lot and figured out that prayer would save us over and over again. And we both decided that we were in it to the end, for better or worse, in sickness and health, until death do us part.

As I look back on our journey and consider what worked and what didn’t, I want to share with you two pieces of advice that were given to me, which made all the difference:

Although we talk a great deal about saying YES to ourselves and to God in this community, learning to say NO and mean it is a crucial part of the journey. Writer, motivational speaker and radical Jesus lover Bob Goff reports he “quits something every Thursday” because he understands saying no to distractions and detours is an integral part of choosing his best yes.

As I watch the world around me and talk to my fellow sojourners, I see how many of us struggle with saying no. Setting appropriate boundaries, building healthy relationships and choosing how to use our time wisely is impossible without liberal use of the word NO.

Here are a few brave ways to use the word NO:

“No.”

No is a complete sentence. Many of us feel compelled to justify our choice to say no, as if we are not entitled to say no unless we have a detailed excuse. Some of us find ourselves performing tasks we didn’t have time or energy to take on simply because we couldn’t quickly come up with a good reason to refuse when we were asked. I can’t count the number of volunteer jobs I was invited to do at church or school over the past two decades where I scrambled to explain the minute details of my busy life to justify to the asker why I was refusing their offer, as if I was begging for their approval. I wanted them to like me, respect me and understand why I was making the choice, when really they just wanted to finish filling out their forms. In most cases, they didn’t care why I couldn’t do it and were ready to move on to the next person on their list. Making excuses is not necessary or helpful in most cases and there are very few people to whom I owe an explanation.

Repeat after me, just say no. In many cases, no is a complete sentence.

“No, I am not fine.”

My daughter recently shared with me her frustration about her living conditions. The college suite she shares with five other girls was chaotic and messy. She was overwhelmed by the disarray and clutter and it was contributing to her feeling scattered. We talked about her options and counted how many days were left until the end of the semester. Several days later, she reported an encouraging turn of events. She had communicated her sense of frustration to her roommates and shared with them how the state of their home was impacting her ability to focus on her schoolwork and her overall mental health. She let them know which things were not working for her and asked for their help. Because she let them know it was important to her, they all chipped in and made some needed changes, cleaning up the suite and talking about what each of them hoped for going forward. If she had continued to keep her growing resentments to herself, her circumstances would have been unlikely to change.

Simply put, other people can’t read our minds, so we must ask for what we need.

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My husband Steve and I went on our first date on November 14, 1980. If you prefer not to do math, those calculations add up to 35 years together! My traveling companion for well over half my life, no other single person has formed and molded the person I am today more than Steve. Because we were children when we met, we have grown up together. We aren’t done yet, but I think we’ve done a reasonably good job of raising each other so far.

When I read these words and pondered what I know about perseverance, I immediately thought of Steve. Perseverance is a perfect word to describe the strength of character I so admire in my husband.

After 35 years together, here are 5 things I have learned about how to persevere from my love:

Show up- Steve repeatedly says the secret of his career success is simply this: he kept showing up. Day after day, year after year, he showed up and worked hard. When asked, he maintains the most interesting part of his story is how completely unremarkable it is. Continue reading →

During these last weeks of summer, as we prepared for the unfolding of fall and the return of our empty nest, I heard these words repeatedly in my spirit.

Be Here Now.

One of my favorite things about summer gardening is watching the butterflies that are inevitably drawn to my flowers. I have spent many happy moments quietly stalking my fluttering friends as they happily visited the colorful blooms on a sunny afternoon. Enjoying these visitors requires only that I am willing to be still and notice. There is nothing to do while butterfly watching, I must be satisfied to just be.

Like my butterfly friends, the quickly passing moments with precious ones over the last few weeks have invited me to be still and notice…to slow down and pay attention. In contrast to my usual results oriented “what’s next” modus operandi, I instead often chose to honor the still, small voice whispering:

Don’t miss this…

Pay attention…

This is the good stuff…

Be Here Now

Some things were left undone, not much writing happened, but in the past few weeks, I have gathered hundreds of moments that are already becoming precious memories. These moments left behind snapshots, both tangible and in my mind, of the people who fill my world with color and life and joy. Continue reading →

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Please meet my new friend, Kelly Smith. I met Kelly through the For the Love Launch team and she is smart, lovely and a great writer! Kelly blogs over at Mrs. Disciple and you should all go follow her immediately. I love the way she weaves her extensive knowledge of scripture into her thoughtful posts. The one she graciously agreed to share with us here features one of my favorite bible stories about Hagar and the God Who Sees Me. Here are her thoughts on what it means to Be Brave in marriage. Welcome, Kelly!!

By Guest Blogger, Kelly Smith

Most would consider the opposite of brave to be fearful. I propose that, in marriage, the opposite of brave can be bitter.

I could almost taste the bitterness in my mouth. I hung up the phone, having just given another yes when my heart screamed no. My husband had a benign, time-consuming hobby that took up most of his free time. He considerately asked each day, and I begrudgingly consented each day.

From time-to-time, the internal conflict between love and misery would rise to the surface. I would explode about something, usually unrelated. Then I resumed stuffing my emotions and handing out yeses with pretend grace. Continue reading →